Overview 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (to be played with left hand) exists as digital representation of seemingly unrelated ideas, an assemblage of 88 thoughts, events, and theories presented through a recreation of recognizable constellations. The piece is named for Ludwig Wittgenstein, a late nineteenth and early twentieth century philosopher who delved into the philosophy of language, the mind, and mathematics. The subtitle references Wittgenstein’s brother Paul, “a concert pianist who lost his right arm in WW I” yet continued to practice and perform pieces with his left hand.
Textual Elements
Begins with two circular representations of constellations
Clicking into one constellation prompts a specific sequence of screens
Each screen ends the same way:
Potential to return to the original beginning overview (left-side of screen: symbol represents two constellations but also looks similar to the infinity sign)
Potential to continue into what the author believes are related issues through clicking hyper-text on the right side (image of a constellation)
One narrative voice – this same voice delivers every piece of information
Narrative voice is accompanied by images and sound for each thought, event, and theory
Some narrations are minimal and image-centric
Other narrations allow for greater narrative overview and present few images
Presented images, sounds, narration correspond and contribute to the central idea
Example: the “Double” page presents the idea of “sameness and difference together” while the narrative voice says “show me – show me one thing that is the same thing and different. Proof.”
Digital music accompanies these words while this image (among others) appears on-screen:
Some screens are more grounded than others
Screens move fluidly between recognizable images (example: exploring Chaplin’s The Great Dictator or Hitchcock's Psycho and then immediately finding the next click could be a series of abstract block with words running through them)
Each screen allows us to pause
Agency is dictated to our gaze, but removed once we’ve decided where to go (we move between passivity and activity)
To restore agency, click on the constellation
To remove agency, click once again on the paused presentation
A "beginning" and “ending” seem to exist
Each screen is numbered 1-88
#1 teaches us that 88 keys exist on a piano and that 88 constellations have been mapped by humans
#64 is "Digital," an acknowledgement that we exist between "meaning and its opposite . . . a logical world of zeroes and ones"
#88 is “Margarate Wittgenstein” – a touching and personal memoir of Ludwig’s older sister’s efforts to restore him from one-time social alienation back to academia/philosophical circles
Digital Modality Specifics
Flash Animation
Loading screens – each screen must pause before we can enter
Musical accompaniment
Music changes depending on content/reader decisions (at least 60 different musical overtones)
Assemblage of images, sound, narration, and text
No true linearity
Meticulous Hypertext and Editing
Moves fluidly between Passive vs. Active reader Agency
Analysis and Interpretation
Seemingly a work of long-form narrative digital literature, 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (to be played with left hand) is an extensive attempt to map not just Ludwig’s life and work, but his extensive influence on the world. The screen “Sex and Character” presents this concept perhaps better than any other; we begin with a discussion between Ludwig and one of his students, yet we move by screen’s end to a breakdown of Freud’s relationship with another scientist. The piece shifts rapidly – both with its overall construction and each screen’s eerily harmonious presentations of voice, sounds, and images – to suggest that a life’s legacy can perhaps only be remotely understood through how we have understood the galaxy: impossible to fully know, but known enough to recognize patterns.
Like Paul’s overcoming and re-contextualizing the loss of his arm, our efforts to map Ludwig’s life requires a rethinking of established patterns and a movement towards orchestrating our efforts to achievable ends: a viewing of history as more than disconnected facts, but the mapping of a person's ability to illuminate our present. In the screen “Private Language,” the narrator expresses Ludwig’s belief that “there is no such thing as a private language . . . we have this idea that thinking happens inside our head, inside a mental space. But it is an illusion.” That statement explains 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein rather well; by removing us from the normal patterns of reading and placing us into a digital space, Ludwig’s life becomes a fascinating hypertextual world that we can inhabit and, if we possess the desire, chart with him.
88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (to be played with left hand) exists as digital representation of seemingly unrelated ideas, an assemblage of 88 thoughts, events, and theories presented through a recreation of recognizable constellations. The piece is named for Ludwig Wittgenstein, a late nineteenth and early twentieth century philosopher who delved into the philosophy of language, the mind, and mathematics. The subtitle references Wittgenstein’s brother Paul, “a concert pianist who lost his right arm in WW I” yet continued to practice and perform pieces with his left hand.
Textual Elements
- Some screens are more grounded than others
- Screens move fluidly between recognizable images (example: exploring Chaplin’s The Great Dictator or Hitchcock's Psycho and then immediately finding the next click could be a series of abstract block with words running through them)
- Each screen allows us to pause
- Agency is dictated to our gaze, but removed once we’ve decided where to go (we move between passivity and activity)
- To restore agency, click on the constellation
- To remove agency, click once again on the paused presentation
- A "beginning" and “ending” seem to exist
- Each screen is numbered 1-88
- #1 teaches us that 88 keys exist on a piano and that 88 constellations have been mapped by humans
- #64 is "Digital," an acknowledgement that we exist between "meaning and its opposite . . . a logical world of zeroes and ones"
- #88 is “Margarate Wittgenstein” – a touching and personal memoir of Ludwig’s older sister’s efforts to restore him from one-time social alienation back to academia/philosophical circles
Digital Modality Specifics- Flash Animation
- Loading screens – each screen must pause before we can enter
- Musical accompaniment
- Music changes depending on content/reader decisions (at least 60 different musical overtones)
- Assemblage of images, sound, narration, and text
- No true linearity
- Meticulous Hypertext and Editing
- Moves fluidly between Passive vs. Active reader Agency
Analysis and InterpretationSeemingly a work of long-form narrative digital literature, 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein (to be played with left hand) is an extensive attempt to map not just Ludwig’s life and work, but his extensive influence on the world. The screen “Sex and Character” presents this concept perhaps better than any other; we begin with a discussion between Ludwig and one of his students, yet we move by screen’s end to a breakdown of Freud’s relationship with another scientist. The piece shifts rapidly – both with its overall construction and each screen’s eerily harmonious presentations of voice, sounds, and images – to suggest that a life’s legacy can perhaps only be remotely understood through how we have understood the galaxy: impossible to fully know, but known enough to recognize patterns.
Like Paul’s overcoming and re-contextualizing the loss of his arm, our efforts to map Ludwig’s life requires a rethinking of established patterns and a movement towards orchestrating our efforts to achievable ends: a viewing of history as more than disconnected facts, but the mapping of a person's ability to illuminate our present. In the screen “Private Language,” the narrator expresses Ludwig’s belief that “there is no such thing as a private language . . . we have this idea that thinking happens inside our head, inside a mental space. But it is an illusion.” That statement explains 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein rather well; by removing us from the normal patterns of reading and placing us into a digital space, Ludwig’s life becomes a fascinating hypertextual world that we can inhabit and, if we possess the desire, chart with him.